The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) wishes to express its dismay at the unconscionable remuneration of Nigeria’s National Assembly members and the adverse impact their salaries and sundry allowances have on the Nigerian economy.
From information available in the public domain, the National Assembly spent about N600 billion between 2011 and 2014. This gives an annual average of N150 billion, a figure higher than the annual budget of most states of the Nigerian federation.
It is confounding that in a country where over 65% of an estimated population of 160 million live on less than US$1 a day, a federal legislator draws salary and other remunerations that are in excess of US$2m annually!
No elected representative of the people deserves that much money in a country where a majority of the citizens forage just to survive; a country that has a plethora of developmental challenges; gross deprivation; decrepit healthcare services; insecurity and high crime rate; high maternal and infant mortality rates; malnutrition; inadequate electricity supply; high levels of illiteracy and unemployment; grossly inadequate infrastructure et cetera.
Nigerians must rise in tandem against this brazen insensitivity if the nation must accumulate enough resources to build its path out of the doldrums.
This drain on our collective national patrimony must cease!
Prince Ifeanyi Onochie
NAS Cap’n
National Association of Seadogs.
July 8, 2015
